Salzburgiense Concilium Omnibus Philosophis Analyticis

Programme - Talk

ragmatists often think of truth as what emerges in inquiry, remaining stable in the long run. Many other philosophers take Tarski's celebrated formal account as the beginning of wisdom about truth. My aim is to show how to clarify both conceptions, and to reveal how the two approaches can be reconciled.
The concept of progress plays a central role in this project. Think of pragmatism as adopting a view about progress in inquiry: progress consists in solving problems. This is supplemented with a strategy for identifying truths -- potential truths emerge as you solve problems, and improve their qualifications as candidates the longer they remain effective in problem-solving. I shall try to show how this approach can help us understand the concept of truth in domains where a correspondence account generates mysteries, and how we should understand the idea of correspondence between representations and the world.